THE Maryborough Mural Project is shifting up a gear and will now focus on attracting people to walk the trail and view the award-winning street art.
Co-founders of the project, Elizabeth Lowrie and Deborah Hannam said the trail had moved into its second phase.
Ms Lowrie said the 38th mural on the trail was completed late last year.
“We will still produce a small number of additional murals, but the major focus of the project’s work will now be to publicise the trail. We are in the second phase of the project – let people know we have fantastic art in Maryborough,” said Ms Hannam.
The project earned a silver award in the Best Street Art Trail at the 2020 Australian Street Art Awards. The winners were announced on the Sunshine Coast earlier this month.
The co-founders said the quantity of murals painted in the CBD now has the critical mass to attract a significant number of visitors.
“We modelled our project on Chemainus in Canada and Sheffield in Tasmania, which attract 600,000 and 200,000 visitors respectively each year,” Ms Lowrie said.
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Ms Hannam said the mural trail was a public asset worth around $1.2-million.
She said getting the word out there is imperative to fulfilling the main aim of the project, attracting large numbers of visitors to Maryborough to help increase the city’s wealth.
Ms Lowrie and Ms Hannam said the project has been working with the University of the Sunshine Coast to develop a publicity plan to be put into action this year.
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But they said residents and businesses have an equally important role to play.
The Maryborough Mural Project is urging people to “talk it up and do the trail.”
Ms Lowrie and Ms Hannam identified several ways people can help get behind the trail and Maryborough by:
- Becoming a volunteer. The project has vacancies for an admin officer, grants officer, tour guides, lighting co-ordinator and trail publicity.
- Helping increase the city’s exposure by sharing the Maryborough Mural Project website with their business and personal contacts on social media, Email and text messaging groups.
- Becoming an informal ambassador for the project and ‘advertise’ the murals and Maryborough when travelling out of the city.
- Walking the trail and getting your visitors to tag along.
- Taking photos of the trail and share them on social media using the #maryboroughmuralproject and #visitfrasercoast hashtags.
The duo said the Maryborough Mural Project is an easy to walk COVID safe trail of 38 murals through the Maryborough CBD.
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You can visit the project’s website or Facebook page for more information or drop in at the Maryborough Town Hall Visitors Centre to collect a self-guided map.